DIY Hanging Wood Poster and Art Frame

On one of our many trips to Lanesboro, MN last year I came across this quirky and fun Minnesota What You Need To Know map that I knew would make a great addition to our guest room. When I brought it up to the register at the Slant Avenue Mercantile the guy behind the counter told me that IKEA had several frames that would fit this map perfectly. I thought between the cost of the map ($5) and the cost of the frame (I was guessing less than $10), this would make for some inexpensive decor.

However, on our next trip to IKEA I realized that a plastic frame is not what I wanted. And even though the map was only $5, I felt a thin plastic frame would "cheapen" the map further. I wanted this map to look like fun art hanging on the wall, not a poster. And I definitely did not want to hide the thick textured paper behind glass.

Then I saw a video on Facebook showing an easy way to make a wooden hanging frame. Perfect! That type of frame would look great and if I can make it myself, even better!

So I purchased thin strips of balsa wood and everything else we had at home. Balsa wood is super, duper inexpensive so if I had to take a quick guestimate of the total cost of this frame, I would have to say $2.

The first thing I did was stain the balsa wood with Minxwax Ebony stain and allowed those to dry.

Once those were dry, I hot glued the magnets to the ends of each piece.

I then glued the twine next to the magnets on one piece of balsa wood.

I connected the front of the frame to the back of the frame with the magnets to complete it but when I lifted the frame by the twine, the map slipped through the magnets.

It didn't work.

The magnets would not hold the paper. What. The Heck. These were strong magnets too!

So to lighten up the entire frame, since it was obviously the magnets were weighing it down, I hot glued double sided foam sticky squares to the balsa strips that would be on the front side of the map. Even though these were sticky on both sides, I still hot glued them because I didn't think it would hold without the hot glue.

The reason I used the foam squares and I didn't just hot glue the map to the wood is because the twine still had to fit between the top strips of balsa wood and the foam squares were about the same width as the twine.

I hot glued the balsa wood strips that went on the back of the map right to the back of the map itself. After those were dry, I hot glued the foam sticky squares that were already glued to the front balsa wood strips right to the front side of the map.

Everything stayed intact and it was ready to hang up in the guest room.

I really love how this turned out and think it fits perfectly in this little corner of our guest room. It's a fun addition to the room that I think our out of town guests will really enjoy looking at. I mean, who doesn't want to see where all of the Paul Bunyan stuff is, or what year all the big tornadoes came through, or where the ghost towns are, or where the threshing events are, and of course where the "can we just get there already" roads are.

Thanks for stopping by! To make this frame all you need is thin balsa strips of wood, stain or paint, twine, a hot glue gun, and foam squares. Super easy and takes minutes to make!

If you decide to make this hanging wood poster and art frame, I would love to see how it turns out!